My early life experience as a child in Pawtucketville (1939 – 1944) and, later, in Centralville gave me the feel and flavor of the world, which surrounded me. That was entirely the world as I saw it. The scope of this experience formed, yearly on, my personal expectations and accepted beliefs.
These attitudes were shared by most working-class individuals, adults and children, living within a one-mile radius centered at the intersection of Aiken Avenue (near the bridge) and Lakeview Avenue to the north.
In a sense, this mostly residential neighborhood called Lower Centralville, seemed to be a natural extension of Little Canada, AKA, “le Petit Canada“, across the Merrimack River where closely-packed tenement buildings dotted this retail/residential neighborhood. These which abutted close to the industrial portion of Little Canada where massive, three and four story, red-brick compounds housing
tenement
